Had a little breeze blow through yesterday. Pat and I were lazily sitting in the rancho, Internet surfing and we saw it coming just in time to slam the lids on our laptops, close our eyes and turn away.
“Well, there,” she said, “your first sirocco.”
sirocco
Noun
sirocco (plural siroccos)
- A strong southerly to southeasterly wind on the Mediterranean that originates in the Sahara and adjacent North African regions.
- In Costa Rica, “A big damn wind” – sudden and short.
I heard it coming but the sound as it moved from tree to tree, charging across the sports plaza, just wasn’t different enough from our everyday blustery winds to get me to look up. It wasn’t until it hit the line of trees on the other side of our driveway that it jerked us to awareness. Too late.
The leading edge was probably only moving at around 5mph, but if you think about it, something really big, moving across a driveway and about 50 feet of lawn, coming straight at you, is on top of you, FAST.
What I remember (sounds like an accident victim, doesn’t it) is the big trees bending wildly and then a roiling cloud of white dust exploding up off the driveway (gravel driveway). It jumped the perimeter wall and shot across the lawn; but, not before it slammed into the icky brown casa-excavation dirt pile, right at the edge of the lawn – which is directly in line with half of the rancho. The cloud turned brown. Then my eyes were closed.
The push of the wind’s hand was firm and the pelting of sand, dirt and other detritus sucked into its maw peppered us and everything in sight with a layer of “gooble” the likes of which I’d never seen. And then it was gone.
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| Randy's a little baffled by the footprints in the layer of dirt. |
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| The remains of a potted flowering plant. Dirt in the upper right corner. |
The cleanup will take days because it is inside everything as well as on the outside.
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| The "splatter" to the left of and top of the burlap is dirt. Every square inch of counter space and floor looks like this. |
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